The New Testament
opens up with the announcement of the birth of Jesus Christ.
And then Jesus Christ’s jumps from there quite quickly
to Christ being baptized and being tempted by Satan for
40 days in the wilderness. And then He begins His ministry.
He calls His disciples and there in Galilee He delivers
the greatest sermon ever preached beginning with the Beatitudes:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they
will be comforted.” And He goes and gives us the
greatest sermon ever preached.

And following
that sermon He goes into the city of Capernaum and there
the centurion of the city, almost every city in the time
of Christ had a centurion. And there was a centurion in
Capernaum, which is where Peter’s home was. Which
is where Jesus spent most of His life during His ministry
in Capernaum and there was a centurion there. And a centurion
is a Roman commander who oversees a hundred troops. That’s
a lot and this centurion comes to Jesus and he says, “Jesus
I have a servant who is sick.” And Jesus says, “I’ll
come right over.” And he goes, “No, no, no
You don’t have to do that.” Then he goes on
to remind Jesus of what an important man he is. He goes,
“You got to realize Jesus I’m a centurion.
I understand how these things work. You see I just tell
this guy to do this and he does it. And I tell my other
lieutenants to go do this and they go do it. And I tell
my servants I want this and they bring it.” He says,
“I don’t have to do anything I just give the
command and it’s done. Jesus You don’t have
to come to my house, just give the command and I know
that my servant will be healed.” Christ is dumbfounded.
The bible says that He was astonished at the words of
the centurion. When Jesus heard this, He was astonished
and said to those following him, “I tell you the
truth I have not found anyone with such great faith.”

Faith: what
is it? In Hebrews it says, “It’s the assurance
of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
The centurion couldn’t see his servant being healed
but he believed it. He knew that if Jesus simply said
the words he would be healed. He had that deep commitment
and belief where he knew that he would be healed. And
later Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it will
be done for you. Just as you have believed it and the
servant was healed at that very hour.”

Some people
say I believe it when I see it. I’ve got to confess
I’ve been guilty of that. There have been times
in my life where I have just through my arrogance and
my lack of humility people have come to me and said I’m
going to do this that and the other thing and I go I’ll
believe it when I see it. Anyone here want to make that
same confession today? If you haven’t said it, you’ve
thought it; same thing! And as a result of that we just
haven’t believed it. But the truth is when we believe
it we see it. And that’s what the bible continues
to tell us. That’s what faith is all about that
when we believe it we see it.

I can’t
tell you how many people that I talk to in the course
of a year who just do not believe that they're going to
go to heaven. And if they’re going to go to heaven
it’s just going to be by luck. They just aren’t
convinced that they have the opportunity, the means or
the will to go to heaven. And I explain to them and share
with them the fact that they can have what I call a ticket
to heaven. And would you like a ticket to heaven? Is there
anyone here who would like a ticket to heaven? We have
got thousands of tickets to heaven. It is my goal to give
away a billion tickets to heaven! Now you may be laughing
but I actually have my ticket. And you have yours and
few others have yours. How many people have their tickets?
You don’t have to pull it out right now you can
just keep it handy. In fact, my wife’s grandmother
passed away in August. She was a hundred and almost a
hundred and one years old. And in her casket she’s
holding her ticket to heaven. And the ticket to heaven
is just a piece of plastic that we’re giving away.
But the piece of plastic has words on it and it’s
the words that have meaning and it’s the words that
are the ticket, it’s not the piece of plastic. The
words on the piece of plastic says, “Anyone who
comes to me I will in no way cast out - Jesus Christ.”
That’s the ticket to heaven. You sign it, you accept
it, and you believe it.

And I have
a dear friend of mine who lives in a gated community in
Mission Viejo. In fact he’s my chiropractor. He
wrote a book with me entitled “Possibility Living:
How to add years to your life and life to your years with
God’s health plan.” But I go to his house
on Friday mornings and what happens is I turn around the
corner and guess what I see. I see a guard shack and two
big gates and before I can get through those gates I have
to get a pass from the guard. I’m not getting through
those gates unless the guard let’s me in. Well I’m
on his permanent list, because I’m his permanent
friend I guess. And so I pull up to the guard shack and
I say I want to go see Dr. DiSiena. Now often they’ll
say sure go ahead. But other times they’ll say,
well just a minute what’s your name? Robert Schuller,
Robert Schuller? I go yes. Oh are you your father’s
son? And I say yes, oh well just a minute, you’re
on the list? I go yes I am. Well let me check and they
close the door and meanwhile my anxiety’s going
up, okay are they going to let me in? Do you know what
I mean? You go to a guard gated community you just never
know if the guards going to let you in. You just don’t
know, you’re going and I’ve had it happen
numerous times they come out and they said I’m sorry
you’re not on the list. I am on the list. I come
in here every week; I’m on page two. Go to your
computer and check page two. And they’ll go to their
computer and they’ll check the computer, oh sorry
Mr. Schuller. Here you go, have a nice day and they give
me the pass. I got through. I’ve gone to other communities
where I’ve been turned away. It’s a terrible
feeling getting turned away. Having the gates closed.

But the facts
are that when the time comes for us to meet Jesus Christ
in heaven we have a ticket to heaven. And the ticket to
heaven is Jesus Christ. It’s very clear: “Anyone
who believes in me will have eternal life.” Those
are the promises of Jesus Christ. And as we continue to
believe in Him we know that we will see Him someday face
to face. And that is a reality that we can all be confident
of and assured of. And if you’d like a ticket to
heaven just to give you that extra bit of insurance or
conviction or help you build your faith, just write to
us we’ll send you one, we’ll send you five,
we’ll send you ten. We have sent these out by the
thousands, if you want to give them away. Just write to
us, we’ll give them to you. Just sign your name
to it, stick it in your pocket like I do. I keep it with
me all the time and it reminds me of my assurance; my
ticket to heaven.

There are people
who go through life and they say you know I believe in
Jesus Christ and I think I’m going to go to heaven
but I’m not sure I’m good enough. So I’m
going to live as good as I can and maybe I’ll make
it. And they think they have a temporary pass into heaven.
Well the facts are that when you accept Jesus Christ as
your personal Lord and Savior you receive a full time
pass into heaven that you will go to heaven and it’s
not retractable. You don’t have to worry about it.
It’s nothing you have to stress over. Am I going
to be good enough to get into heaven? I can’t tell
you how many people stress over being good enough to get
into heaven. And that is something we never have to do
as Christians.

It reminds
me of people I golf with. They get so stressed out over
the way they play! I golf with nothing but a bunch of
hackers. A hacker is somebody who shoots in like the high
nineties. A good score, their best scores they might get
in the low nineties. You know like they have goals like
I have, I’m going to shoot my age someday and that’s
why I want to live to be a hundred and twenty. We were
golfing this one day and just before we started a guy
was making the turn which means he just finished golfing
nine holes and was getting ready to golf the second nine
holes. And I said how you doing? He says oh not too good.
Well, our big line when we golf is hey you know at least
we don’t have to make a profession out of this thing;
at least we’re not pros. I said how you doing? Oh
not so good. And I said well it doesn’t matter unless
you’re a pro! And he goes, I am. Well and I just
kind of raised my eyebrows and walked away.

The good news
is that there is only one pro when it comes to heaven
and His name is Jesus Christ. He is the professional who
did it perfectly. So we don’t have to do it perfectly!
We cannot live a perfect life. We can do it, we can strive,
we can try but the facts are no matter how hard you try
it will never be good enough to earn your way into heaven.
It doesn’t happen that way. It’s a gift. Plain
and simple, it’s a gift. Anyone who comes to me
is the promise. I will in no way cast out. That’s
it, it’s that simple.

Fifteen eighty
six in a little town in Heidelberg Germany a catechism
was written. It’s called the Heidelberg Catechism.
It’s actually one of the professions of this faith,
of this church. Something we use to teach. It’s
been something we’ve been using for four hundred
and fifty years. And the way they used to teach was very
simple. They ask a question and they give an answer. And
so the Heidelberg Catechism opens up with this question:
What is your only comfort in life and in death? That’s
the question. The very first question. What is you only
comfort in life and in death? And the answer is this:
that I belong. Oh, isn’t that beautiful? That I
belong! That I’m a member! Not to myself, mind you.
It says that I belong not to myself but to my faithful
Savior Jesus Christ that not a hair on my head can fall
without the will of my Father in heaven so that all things
work for my salvation. Therefore, I am wholeheartedly
willing and ready to live for Him. So when we become members
we don’t sit there and try to earn our way in, we’re
already in! We do things because we just want to make
it better. We want to make the world a better place, we
want to make our friendships better, we want to be used
by God to serve people, to love people. And that’s
what Jesus told us to do. Love one another as I have loved
you.

And so we are
called today by Christ to become members of His family.
To receive our tickets to heaven as a gift from God. Nothing
that we can earn nothing, that we can purchase, it is
a gift. Today I want to encourage you to first and foremost
accept the invitation to know Jesus Christ and to be a
part of His family. To simply say a prayer and you say
yes Jesus, I want to belong. You simply come to Him and
say I want to be a part of Your family. And then if you
want to become a part of the Crystal Cathedral, you can
join the Crystal Cathedral as well. You can go online,
you can attend one of our member’s classes here
in the Cathedral if you live nearby, there’s many
ways that you could participate in the life of this church.
The key is to belong. So today I want to invite you to
come and to profess your faith in Jesus Christ. To say
yes to Him. Join the fellowship of believers who know
that they truly will see the beauty of God forever.